The Young Turks - TikStoks

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Rep. Pramila Jayapal stands her ground on the reconciliation bill. The Chamber of Commerce warns moderate Democrats against voting for the reconciliation package. TikTokers are trading stocks by copying members of Congress. Senator Joe Manchin removes ethics provisions from the Democratic reform bill. Amazon’s AI cameras are punishing drivers for mistakes they didn’t make. Hosts: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. What's up, everyone, you're watching The Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we've got a jam-packed show for you today.

Really looking forward to the very first story on our rundown, an update. on the corporate media and how it has just immediately pivoted its messaging on the reconciliation bill to essentially make progressives in Congress the bad guys. So we'll give you a lot of video examples of that and more. But look, corporate media is going to do what it is paid to do. And we need to ensure that we have progressives who are strong enough to call out corporate Democrats for the corruption and legalized bribery that they participated in. Later on in the show, Wozni Lombre will be joining me for hour two. John Ida Rola is feeling a little under the weather today.

So if you're online right now, why don't you send him a little love on Twitter, tell him to get better soon. We're gonna miss him today, but hopefully he'll have a speedy recovery and he'll be back soon. In the second hour, by the way, we're gonna have, I wanna say, a little bit of fun. It's always a good time to have Wozni on, but we're gonna talk about how Texas Governor Greg Abbott essentially got bullies, got bullied by Tucker Carlson into doing something that wastes the resources of taxpayers in his own state. So we'll get to that in the second hour. But as always, I just wanted to encourage you guys to like and share the stream if you're

watching online, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell Randy Gonzalez. For all you old school, TYT viewers, you know what I'm talking about. For everyone else, don't worry about it, let's move on. Let's get to our first story. That's new, that's new. Shout out to the crew for making this possible. Shout out to Brett Ehrlich for really taking the lead on this. We've got some fun sidebars now.

Now Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has been making her rounds on cable news to basically put out the messaging that we want progressives to put out in regard to the budget reconciliation bill. This is the incredibly important piece of legislation that deals with so called human infrastructure. In reality, this is the bill that has all the social safety net programs that we need, including climate action, universal pre-K, permanent child tax credits, Medicare expansion to include important things like vision, hearing, dental, should be part of health care, you know what I'm saying, lowers the Medicare eligibility age, allows for drug prices to be negotiated by Medicare, just really important piece of legislation. Now, I love that Pramila Jayapal continues to stand her ground as other progressives have done both on social media and in the news. So I'm going to give you

an example of some of the messaging we are getting from Congressman Jayapal as this debate unfolds. We will agree to that bipartisan bill if and only if we also pass the reconciliation bill first. That was our position. We whipped our members on it over half of the progressive caucus three months ago today said we will vote for both bills. We will vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is much smaller. And frankly, Rachel, it has a lot of things that our members don't like. But if we can get the reconciliation bill that has the majority of the president's agenda in it, the majority of what we ran on, then we will vote for both bills. All right, fantastic. Now, she mentions the bipartisan infrastructure bill and how progressives

don't like it, but they have agreed to vote in favor of it as long as they also get to vote for the reconciliation bill, which is the legislation that they like. Now the bipartisan infrastructure bill, she said that progressives don't really like it. Why don't they like it? Well, it's basically a corporate handout bill, okay? It privatizes public infrastructure. It does not raise the taxes of corporations and the wealthy. It also allows for these corporations to gain incredibly lucrative government contracts

in order to build the infrastructure that's noted in the legislation. And look, all of this was supposed to be one big giant bill, but conservative Democrats are like, no, no, I mean, we really care about bipartisanship. So we want to be able to pass a bill in a bipartisan way. Thus, they divided the bill into two different bills. One, that's the corporate handout bill, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, of course. And then there's the budget reconciliation bill, which can be passed with a simple minority, I'm sorry, simple majority in the Senate, okay?

The bipartisan bill has support from Republicans in the Senate, 19 Republican senators to be specific, because they love the corporate handouts. They love standing by their donors, and they don't really hide that. So that's what Jaya Paul is saying there, right? She's like, look, we agreed that we'll vote in favor of the bipartisan bill if and only if we get a vote on the budget reconciliation bill. That was the deal from the get go. We've already made concessions in allowing for this legislation to be split in two. So let's let's go for it. Let's make this happen, we are going to hold on to or hold up our part of the deal, and we're expecting

conservative Democrats to do the same. Now, she repeated similar points while talking to other cable news shows. Let's take a look at that. Once you come to that moment, as the speaker was talking about, will you issue an ultimatum that it is either two bills or it is no bills that progressives are either going to say, hey, get on board with both of these, or we are not on board with the smaller bipartisan bill? We've done that already. And in fact, we did it three months ago. We've been saying that consistently that we will vote for the bipartisan bill, even though many

of our members do not like what is in the bipartisan bill. But we have to get the reconciliation bill done at the same time. We've got to be able to say to the American people that we are not going to wait on child care. We're not going to wait on paid leave. We're not going to wait on health care. It isn't enough just to do this much smaller roads and bridges bill. We've got to get the other pieces done as well that are so urgent. So we've already told the speaker that over half of our caucus has said that they would not be able to vote for one bill without the other. Now, we're going to get back to CNN's Breonna Keeler in just a minute because there was more from that interview that's worth unpacking.

But this is where this segment gets good, because it appears that CNN has somehow passed around an internal memo telling its host to frame their questions toward Pramila Jayapal in a very specific way. And you're going to get what I'm talking about in this example featuring Jake Tapper. Let's watch. If you and the Progressive Caucus vote to defeat the bipartisan infrastructure bill because the bigger budget package hasn't passed first, then you are basically hurting President Biden in his agenda and the ability of Democrats to do anything else going forward. Well, several things. I mean, first of all, this is the president's agenda. What we are fighting for is the president's agenda. It's actually what we all ran on. And it's what voters delivered the House, the Senate, and the White House to us to deliver back to them.

So did you catch that? Jake Tapper is framing the question in such a way to essentially indicate to the audience that if progressives don't cave to the demands of corporate Democrats, well, they're hurting President Joe Biden and his agenda. No, no, no, but let's rewind. What was the deal from the beginning? First of all, this was supposed to be one piece of legislation. One piece of legislation that if Biden really wanted could have been passed through the reconciliation process, which would mean that no Republicans would be required in the Senate to pass the bill. But, you know, he wanted to play patty cakes with Republicans and pretend like unity is something that's incredible. incredibly important in Congress, right?

There is unity in the electorate, the vast majority of Americans, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, want the social programs that are offered that are being proposed in the reconciliation bill. It polls incredibly well. So what Biden could have done is he could have, you know, played hardball with the corporate Democrats in the Senate, people like Mark Warner, Kirsten Cinema, Joe Manchin, who are trying to be obstacles in passing, you know, provisions that would fundamentally and materially improve the lives of working Americans. He could have done that. But instead, he's like, no,

let's divvy it up. Let's divvy it up. And the agreement was, as long as we get the passage of the, you know, bipartisan bill, as long as we, you know, give the American people this illusion of unity in Congress, we'll ensure that we'll also pass the reconciliation. But that was the deal. That was the deal. And progressives have already conceded. They've conceded to the amount of spending in the reconciliation bill. Bernie Sanders wanted to spend somewhere in the ballpark of $5 to $6 trillion. The bill now proposes spending $3.5 trillion.

Concessions have already been made. Okay, so the people who are actually hurting Biden's agenda, Jake Tapper, are the corporate Democrats. and to be quite honest, the corporate media. Because they're perpetuating this myth about progressive standing in the way, about progressives doing harm to poor Joe Biden, the most powerful man in the world. Okay, not buying it. Now, Chris Cuomo also had his little commentary segment last night, and it was embarrassing. Why? Well, let's watch.

If the Senate, the Democrats there, if they won't give, on the reconciliation price tag in a way that appeases the far last left slash the president and the response from them, from the fringe is to stall the infrastructure bill that's been agreed on

in the Senate. President Joseph Biden could literally go 0 for 2. You stave off the big lie. You stave off an insurrection. You beat the most poisonous president in a generation

only to have your own party leave you vulnerable? Are you serious? Let me, let me, let me get this straight. So it's progressives who are in the wrong here, really? I mean, I don't, I don't know, well, look, obviously we can speculate about what the intentions are here, because there's only two possibilities. Possibility number one is that the anchors or hosts at CNN, don't do any research and their producers don't do any research and they're completely dumbfounded

by the sequence of events. They don't know what the sequence of events were. They weren't paying attention. I mean, they're talking about these stories on a daily basis. So it's really hard to assume that they don't know what the sequence of events were. The other possibility, and I think this is a far more likely possibility, is that the corporate advertisers, the corporate interests that help fund CNN do not want the passage of the reconciliation bill. And to be sure, they do not. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is already spending a ton of money on advertising to attack, to target conservative Democrats who might vote in favor of the reconciliation bill, right? So there's a reason why corporations love the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It's

because they stand to make money off of it, and it doesn't raise their taxes. The reconciliation bill is the important piece of legislation that needs to get passed. And if progressives actually follow through on what they're threatening here, if they vote, no, if they block the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, because it's clear that the reconciliation bill does not have a path forward, they should be applauded. They should be celebrated. Because it is, in my opinion, it is not going to hurt them politically. I think the corporate media is going to whine and cry about it. I think that conservative Democrats are going to whine and cry about it. But you know who's going to be harmed by that bill? Americans who are

going to start paying tolls and fees for roads and bridges that they're currently using for free because that infrastructure was privatized through the bipartisan infrastructure bill. So honestly, I would have no, the worst possible outcome would be the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill with no reconciliation bill. So there's going to be a lot of pressure for progressives to play ball and to give the corporate interests what they want, and they can't do that. It is a huge political liability for them. Now, I saved the best for last because, as I said, we're going to go back to Keeler.

And her interview and her framing was really the big cahuna of this whole segment. Okay, so let's take a look at how she framed her questions. So you're saying you're willing to take nothing because it may come to that. Well, I'm actually saying that other people are willing to crash the entire democratic agenda by refusing to come together on the reconciliation bill. Your margin is so slim that those, you need those people. And without them, nothing gets done. Yes, and they need you for certainly. That's right.

And so you're willing to take, so you're willing to take nothing? No, they would be willing to take nothing. Well, you would both, let's remember this is the president's agenda. They would be willing, they would be willing to take, that's not true, they would be willing to take something, which is the bipartisan bill. You would be willing to take nothing other than both. The reality, Brianna, is that we are willing to deliver the entirety of the president's agenda to his desk. Why is it all or not? Why is it all or nothing? Well, because if we don't do the rest of the package now, we will not have child care.

We will not have paid leave. We will not have any of those things. You know how Washington works. We are now at the end of the year. Very little gets done. at the end of the year and nothing will get done next year. So look, to be clear, this was something that we expected. We knew that eventually the messaging in corporate media would pivot to what we're seeing right before us right now, okay? So we can't fault the corporate media for being corporate media. This is what we can expect.

Now in terms of the messaging from Jayapal, obviously I agree with it. her strategically, and I think that making it clear that this was the agreement from the jump is important. But I'd like to see her go a little further than that. Because the American people deserve to know what's really at stake, but more importantly, what's really at play in regard to the corporate interests, in regard to what's, you know, pushing for the bipartisan bill and why it is that conservative Democrats in the Senate are threatening to block the reconciliation bill, right? So Kirsten Cinema gets called out on the show all the time in regard to her corporate interests. I would like to see progressives, including Representative

Jayapal, say on national television, hey, don't you think it's a little fascinating that Senator Kirsten Cinema campaigned as a progressive? And now, after receiving a hundred $100,000 in donations from pharmaceutical companies in the last election cycle alone. She's against allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Don't you think it's fascinating that Senator Joe Manchin made half a million dollars last year alone from dirty coal, from his personal financial investments in dirty coal? Don't you think that kind of corruption and legalized bribery is a little bit of an issue? And once those senators start whining and crying about it, which they inevitably

would do, threaten to do it more unless they play ball. This is it. This is really the opportunity and possibly the last opportunity for progressive lawmakers to prove that they're going to fight for the constituents, that they're going to fight for the very people who put them in those positions of power in the first place. So again, Pramil Jayapal did fine in those interviews, but now is the time to fight hard because they're up against corporate media, they're up against corporate interests, and they're up against corrupt politicians in their own party.

And they got to start fighting like it. We got to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian with you. I wanted to read one member comment before I move on to our next story. This is from Dank Proley, I think. This is why I watched TYT. This was 100% predicted ahead of time. And that's in regard to the last segment I just did regarding the corporate media,

pivoting its messaging toward blaming progressives if they block the corporate handout bill, otherwise known as the bipartisan infrastructure bill. So look, we make predictions. I would like to say that most of the time my predictions are correct. But sometimes I get them wrong, right? But you know, we've been at this for a long time. So usually we can see the tea leaves, we could read the tea leaves. And we gotta be honest with you guys and tell you what the reality is.

All right, well let's move on to the US Chamber of Commerce. No lobbying group wants to defeat the budget reconciliation bill more than the US Chamber of Commerce. And that has been abundantly clear, well, really for months now. But lately, they have decided to dedicate a ton of money to advertising that targets so-called moderate Democrats. You know, these are the Democrats who run in vulnerable districts. These are usually the Democrats who take a lot of money in corporate donations for their campaigns. Well, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made it clear. clear, if you don't block the budget reconciliation bill, which raises taxes on the rich

and corporations, which offers all sorts of material benefits to the lives of working Americans, well, we're gonna come for you, and we're gonna come at you real hard. So here's what we know based on their ad buys. The ads target representatives, Cindy Axney from Iowa, Angie Craig from Minnesota, Antonio Delgado from New York, Josh Harder from California, and Elaine Luria from Virginia, urging them to reject Democrats' party-line spending plan over its proposed tax hikes. Because remember, this is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They represent the best interests of corporations, of business owners, of employers who certainly

want to maximize their profits and ensure that they're not paying their fair share in taxes. Now, the ad campaign comes after the chamber sent out, get this, a key vote letter to lawmakers urging them to reject the reconciliation package or risk losing the group's endorsement. No member of Congress can achieve the support of the business community if they vote to pass this bill as currently constructed the letter read. Now, let me remind you all that the reconciliation bill includes wildly popular provisions. that again would improve the lives of Americans, which is why the support for that bill crosses party lines. Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly favor it. So losing the support of the business

community wouldn't necessarily be a big deal if you're actually providing material benefits to your constituents. So I want to give you an example of what these ads look like. Let's take a look. American workers and small businesses are being hit from all sides. A devastating pandemic, skyrocketing inflation. And now the Biden administration wants to hit them again with massive tax increases. These tax hikes would be a body blow to our economy, endangering our recovery and taking more hard-earned money from small businesses and working families. Tell Representative Delgado, don't knock us out with people.

these massive tax increases. Now, while there might be some regulations in regard to false advertising for private companies, political ads can contain all sorts of lies. And that political ad had all sorts of lies. First off, the budget reconciliation bill would in fact increase taxes on the rich. So there is a proposal to raise the capital gains tax. Capital gains has to do with money earned income earned through investments. Let's say you buy stocks, something that mostly the top 10% of this country can afford to do. If you earn money on whatever stock purchase you've made, well then you pay a tax on that,

a capital gains tax. It's still income, but it's taxed differently at a much lower rate than the income you would earn from working really hard at a job. So it's calling for a fairer system, hey, let's raise the capital gains tax. If you're making more than $400,000 a year, you could afford to pay a little more in taxes. That's what it calls for. But remember, we're talking about incredibly wealthy people who don't want to pay their fair share. So what they do is try to fearmonger about, these middle class workers, their taxes are going to go up.

That is not the case. If you are making less than 400 grand a year, you're good, you're not. going to get a tax increase. Now, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, Suzanne Clark, argues that, quote, the success of the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations provides a much better model for how Congress should proceed in addressing America's problems. The reason why Clark loves the bipartisan infrastructure bill is because it doesn't raise taxes on the rich, and calls for some pretty lucrative government contracts for private corporations to essentially build infrastructure. It also privatizes public infrastructure, which means that some of the

roads and bridges that Americans get to use now for free will now have tolls and fees implemented so the corporations essentially managing that infrastructure can make some money. That's what this is about. That's why they love the bipartisan infrastructure bill, hate the reconciliation bill. The reconciliation bill is the important piece of legislation that we want to get passed. And there are going to be a ton of lies, both in political advertising and from the corporate media, about how harmful the reconciliation bill is. But make no mistake about it. The reconciliation bill would have a more equitable system, tax system, to ensure that working Americans aren't paying a higher percentage of their earnings toward taxes compared to the richest

Americans, okay? It would actually provide some of the social programs that we desperately need, including universal pre-K, an expansion of Medicare. It would lower the Medicare eligibility age. It would allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices, so Americans aren't paying two to three times more for pharmaceutical drugs compared to other countries. It would have mandatory paid family leave. Look, the reconciliation bill cuts into the financial interests and profit motives of the richest, most successful corporations in this country. They don't want to live in a country that has a system that isn't rigged in their favor. So that's why they put out these types of ads. And weak, conniving corporate Democrats, you know, they do right by their

donors and their donors are represented by the US Chamber of Commerce. Now again, I know what to expect with corporate Democrats. The only way that we really have a path forward for the reconciliation bill is if progressives in the House follow through on their threats, that they will block the infrastructure bill unless they get the passage of the reconciliation bill. As long as they hold on to that, as long as they follow through on that, I really do think there's a possibility that will get the reconciliation bill. But in terms of corporate Democrats, they're weak, they're cowards. Ads like the one I just showed you speak volumes to them.

Rather than fight for their constituents, they're going to cower and carry out the best interests of their corporate donors. Pretty pathetic. And they should be primaried. All right, well, let's move on to one more story before we take our next break. This is one of my favorite stories of the day. TikTokers have caught on to the fact that the stock portfolios of members of Congress tend to outperform the stock market.

So they're tracking the financial disclosures of these lawmakers and investing in the same stocks that our corrupt lawmakers are invested in. Seems pretty smart. Now here is one example of a TikToker saying that he's doing just that. Shouts out to Nancy Pelosi, the stock market's biggest whale. Apparently, she's decided to go very heavy in tech stocks. So I'm going to show you guys which ones she bought.

According to her financial disclosure form, she bought Google, Amazon, Apple, and Navidia. This can be considered very good for all of these stocks, and she's invested over $11 million in all of these positions put together. Shout out to Nancy Pelosi for the stock tips. Yeah, shouts out to Nancy Pelosi. who has access to insider information and can make some trades on that. Now, of course, she claims, no, no, I have nothing to do with this. I'm not investing in anything.

There's no insider trading happening. We'll get back to that in just a second. Now, the TikToker that we just showed you seems to be unaware of how things work. You know, unaware of the fact that there's some corruption taking place here, which is why these lawmakers are doing so well in their stock portfolios. But there are some other TikTokers who are aware of the corruption, and his thought is, well, if I can't beat them, why not join them? Let's watch. And would you look at that, literally clockwork? The U.S. government has an agreement to purchase a supercomputer from who else? InVIDIA. Yep, InVIDia. The one that Nancy bought back on 72321 in that tweet. The news comes out literally yesterday, like 82421. She knew. All right, so that Ticktoker with the fun music in the background was Chris Josephs,

who keeps close track of the investments made by these lawmakers. And of course, we know about the investments they make, about the stocks that they sell, the stocks that they buy, thanks to their financial disclosures. And that's what Joseph's is looking at. Now, in the past year and a half, Joseph's has been taking advantage of a law called the Stock Act, which requires lawmakers to disclose stock trades and those of their spouses within 45 days. He's personally investing when he sees which stocks are picked. By the way, let me just pause for a second.

I'm not doing this segment to give you guys financial advice. In fact, this is not a financial advice show. Do not take any financial advice from anyone who's not a certified financial advisor, a fiduciary specifically. I'm doing this story because the fact that members of Congress can invest in individuals, stocks. And the fact that members of Congress have control over legislation that impacts these businesses is wrong and should be banned and outlawed. Okay, let me continue. Joseph says this, and I'm sure a lot of people agree with it. I'm at the point where if you can't beat them, meaning members of Congress, join them. I typically do buy the next one she does, I'm going to buy.

So that's what he's doing. That's his whole strategy. In fact, he offers a service that gives notifications on your phone as soon as a member of Congress has made a financial disclosure. So far this year, by the way, this is relevant. Senate and House members have filed more than 4,000 financial trading disclosures, get this, with at least 315 million of stocks and bonds bought or sold. So I'm for the longest time wondered, why does anyone, why does anyone, why to serve in Congress, if they don't use that position of power for good, right? Like what's the point of having power for power's sake, right? Imagine all the incredible things you could do to improve people's lives. Instead, they spend all their time fundraising,

they spend all their time kissing up to corporate interests. And so I was like, I don't know, it seems like a miserable existence. Why do they do it? Well, there's a giant perk if you're a member of Congress. Again, you have access to insider information and you get to trade, on that insider information, which is why, if you look at data, if you look at studies into this, members of Congress have stock portfolios that outperform the stock market. Now, an assistant professor at Augusta University, who's been studying the trend, told NPR this. Investors perceive that senators may have insider information, and we see abnormal positive returns when there's a disclosure by a senator. And by the way, at least one financial services

consultant is planning to set up a financial instrument that automatically tracks congressional stock picks because, in his view, lawmakers are, quote, probably privy to more information than just the general public. And guess what? They are. Let's watch. In March 2020, news spread that four U.S. senators, including Burr, were being investigated for insider trading. All ahead of the drastic escalations in this pandemic, while still reassuring citizens that the U.S. was prepared. Senator Burr vehemently denies the allegations against him, but here's what we know. On January 24th, the Senate's Health Committee held a briefing with CDC Director Robert Redfield and White House Pandemic Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to the Washington Post.

About two weeks later, Burr and Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander wrote a Fox News editorial that the U.S. was better prepared than ever to deal with a pandemic like the coronavirus. Less than a week later, the Dow set an all-time record, hitting just over 29,551 points. On February 13th, Burr sold between $630,000 and $1.7 million worth of investments. He did it in 33 separate transactions, and he didn't buy a single share. I mean, that was just Senator Burr, but this is a longstanding practice, this is a huge problem. Because again, it's not just about Congress people enriching themselves, which is pretty gross as it is. If they're legislating and making decisions on regulations, for instance, are they really going to want to pass legislation that regulates businesses that then leads to losses and profits.

Hurts the money that they earn, right? Earn through these, through the stock market. I mean, it obviously is a huge conflict of interest, huge conflict of interest. They should not be invested in individual stocks. In fact, Nancy Pelosi claims she's not invested in individual stocks, which is a flat out lie. She's like, I don't manage my stock portfolio.

Someone else does. Come on, come on, really? Oh, so you have a financial advisor or a money manager who does it for you and you're completely in the dark about what kind of investments are being made? You think we're going to believe that garbage? Come on. Come on. It's just, it's pathetic.

And by the way, her husband is invested in individual stocks. Her office, like, mentioned that. It's, you know, someone else handles her stock portfolio and her husband, you know, her husband deals with it too. Yeah, they, that's her husband. Like they live together in the same household. They have the same interests. It's just so stupid.

Anyway, there are some members of Congress who are trying to fight back against this, although there's a lot of pushback. For instance, Congressman Raja Krishna Murthy, a Democrat from Illinois, is part of a bipartisan group of House and Senate members who have introduced legislation banning lawmakers from owning individual stocks. Unsurprisingly, he has run up against a lot of opposition to the idea. And I want to just briefly mention one of the studies that kind of track the stock portfolios of members of Congress compared to the overall stock market. And here's what they found. The study abnormal returns from the common stock investments of members of the United States House of Representatives found that House members earned statistically significant positive abnormal returns, outperforming the market by six percentage points.

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The authors say citing their own earlier research from 2004, Senate portfolios show some of the highest excess returns ever recorded over a long period of time, significantly outperforming even hedge fund managers with gains that are both economically large and statistically significant. And just quickly going back to the financial disclosures, there's been a trend late. of lawmakers failing to, you know, do the financial disclosures that they're supposed to do. And then they have all sorts of excuses for why that's the case. My question is, are there ever going to be any consequences for that?

And are we ever going to get an independent body outside of the House or Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the insider trading that's happening right now? The thing is, you need members of Congress to pass legislation to make that. happen. But it's really hard to do when the same members of Congress are enriching themselves with this type of behavior. Let's take our second break. When we come back, we'll talk a little more about Joe Manchin's corruption and how he has stripped election reform legislation of ethics rules that would do away with some of the corruption that we talked about in this segment. We'll be right back.

All right, we've got Craig Lowry, managing the set. We've got DJ Bart Kyle playing all the funky hits for you guys. Love the crew, wouldn't be able to do this show without them. So just wanted to give him a shout out. All right, let's move on to our next story. We've been talking about corruption a lot today. And we have been discussing the corruption behind Joe Manchin's actions. He wants to really codify, protect,

corruption, and he certainly did that when it came to the election reform bill. So remember when conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin said that he did not agree with the For the People Act? That was the election reform bill that would essentially ensure that we have free and fair elections. It would deal with gerrymandering, which tends to give Republicans, you know, the advantage in these elections. It would do away with some of the campaign finance issues that we have. Well, turns out that the replacement that was proposed by Joe Manchin stripped a lot of that campaign finance stuff out.

Because guess what? He loves the campaign finance stuff. He himself takes advantage of the campaign finance stuff. So I want to give you the details on this because I think it gives you a sense of who's actually interested on fighting on behalf of their constituents, and who's really in Congress to enrich themselves. So for the People Act, that's the election reform bill, the more robust version that was blocked by people like Joe Manchin, passed by the U.S. House in March, was then filibustered in

the Senate in June. And it contains over a hundred pages of ethics legislation, along with changes to campaign finance laws and election access. Now here's where things get interesting, okay? All of the government ethics provisions have now been stripped out of the Senate Democrats compromise version to the For the People Act. It's known as the Freedom to Vote Act, which is set to receive a procedural vote very soon, perhaps this week, according to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Now, let's just stop for a second because Mansion claims, look, I had to come out with like a compromise bill because we want to make sure that this passes the Senate and there's still that legislative filibuster in the Senate, which means that this piece of legislation would need to pass with 60 votes, meaning that 10 Republican senators would need to vote in favor of it, the compromise version, for it to pass. Guess what? Guess what? Not a single GOP lawmaker in the Senate will vote in favor of the For the People Act, of course, or this compromise bill by Joe Manchin. They would need to do away with the Senate filibuster or at least have a carve out, meaning an exception to the Senate filibuster, in order to get either version passed. But Democrats

going to do that. So let's just be clear, neither one of these are going to pass, okay? What Mansion is doing, though, gives you more insight into who he is and who he's really working for. So many of the excised ethics rules would have covered the executive branch, like ending the ability for presidents to spend federal funds at businesses they own, like Trump did, by the way. They also would have cracked down on outsized corporate and special interest donations to inaugural committees, slowed the revolving door between government and lobbying, and required presidents and vice presidents to divest from investments posing conflicts of interest, among other things. Now, Joe Manchin isn't going to run for president,

so I'm sure he wasn't all that concerned about that provision impacting the executive branch. But he was definitely interested in doing away with this provision. Other ethics reforms that Mansions snuffed out would have targeted Congress, banning U.S. representatives from serving on private company boards and borrowing and barring representatives and senators from working on legislation with the primary purpose of furthering their own financial interests. Dude, Homeboy has all sorts of conflicts of interest. He's a giant walking conflict of interest on the Senate floor. That's who Joe Manchin is.

Don't believe me? Let me give you the details. Joe Manchin lists four outside positions on his financial disclosure report from 2020. In addition to income, he claims from investments in a pair of family companies. So there's coal brokerage inner systems. I've talked about that before, but I'll give you more details in a bit, where his non-public stock is reported as worth more than $5 million or up to $5 million. Then there's the material provider Farmington resources worth up to $500,000.

Mansion is a partner in MPM properties which owns real estate and in Mansion Enterprises, which reportedly owns a commercial rental property. TYT Investigates also previously reported that he is invested in, I believe it's AA properties or something like that where he is an investor in a hotel, La Quinta Hotel in West Virginia, that's pretty relevant as well. But let's take a look at the investments he's made in dirty coal in the state of West Virginia. According to his most recent financial disclosure, Mansion gained almost half a million dollars last year due to his non-public shares in a coal company called Enter Systems, which record, which records show is a contractor

for a power plant in the state's north that burns waste coal. Meanwhile, Manchin's 2020 income for being a senator was $174,000, meaning that he's making more than double from his investments in this dirty coal company compared to his Senate salary. So money talks or as my dad says, the cash is talking. So it's just, it's incredible. Like this is, yeah, of course he's going to strip the bill of these ethics provisions because the ethics provisions impact him. And look, he's not the only one, right?

Mansion happens to be the most vociferous, right? He's the one who's willing to raise his hand and be like, hey, everyone, I'm the biggest prick in the room, okay? But there are many pricks in that room. There are many lawmakers who do not like the idea of being forced to divest from individual stocks or corporations. I mean, why are they in Congress in the first place? I mean, it's all about enriching themselves, right?

Again, Mansion's just the only one who's willing to be the punching bag on behalf of other corporate Democrats. So let me give you more. Sludge, that's the report that this story is coming out of, or that's the outlet that this report is coming out of, found that over a dozen House members are board members for, I'm sorry, are board members at for-profit companies ranging from real estate firms to banks by scouring thousands of pages of disclosure reports. Congress refuses to release data on its members outside positions or financial investments, only releasing information as scanned, paper forms or PDFs without searchable data, often disorganized and illegible. Gee, I wonder why. And look, the election reform bill is so important. I mean, it's amazing, right?

Because what these greedy, self-interested corporate Democrats are doing is really political suicide. I mean, they might be too stupid to see it. But we're seeing in state after state, Republicans either passing voter suppression bills to rig the electoral system in their favor, or they're engaging in even more aggressive gerrymandering. Here's an example. Last month, state governments began the decennial redistricting process, where Republicans

are expected to gerrymander a net gain of about 20 house seats, more than enough to retake control of the chamber. So if Democrats were smart, if the Biden administration were smart, they would immediately focus their attention on getting the election reform bill passed by doing away with the legislative filibuster in the Senate. That way, the legislation can pass with a simple majority in the Senate, and we can have some electoral protections here, some equality, some fairness, that way we don't have this rigged system that overwhelmingly favors Republican candidates. But they're too busy thinking about their own financial interests, which is insane.

Because again, I mean, the proof is in the pudding, we can read the tea leaves, it's political suicide. And they just either don't see it, can't see it, or don't want to see it because they don't want to hurt their precious, you know, financial investments. It's insane. It's just absolutely crazy. All right, we've got time for one more. So let's do one more story.

Amazon has implemented AI cameras in its delivery vehicles to essentially surveil its drivers. And there are some significant consequences to this because turns out the AI technology is pretty faulty. And the data that it records is being used to deny drivers. their bonuses. So they're losing pay based on faulty technology that has been installed to surveil them creepily as they do their jobs. So in February, Amazon announced that it would install cameras made by the AI tech startup, Netrodine, in its Amazon branded delivery vans as an innovation to keep drivers safe. And that's what they always say, right? No, we just, we care about our drivers, we care about our workers, we just want to keep them safe. No, no, they want to

surveil them. They want to make their lives even more miserable than it already is. They're expected to make 25 deliveries in an hour. Like it's insane the quotas that they have to meet. So on one hand, they have these insane quotas. On the other hand, they're being surveilled to ensure that they're driving perfectly, even though They have all the incentives to drive not so perfectly because they got to meet that quota, right? I mean, it's just workers are being pulled in a billion different directions. It's insane. So as of this month, Amazon has fitted more than half of its delivery fleet nationwide with this technology.

Now, Derek, a delivery driver at the facility, said that the camera in his van started to incorrectly penalize him whenever cars cut him off an everyday occurrence in Los Angeles. And I can definitely attest to that. Maintain safe distance, the camera installed above his seat would say when a car cut him off. The data would be sent to Amazon and would be used to evaluate his performance that week and determine whether he got a bonus. So again, this data gets recorded. It gets sent over to Amazon. And then Amazon uses the data, which is faulty based on several of its workers, by the way, speaking out against this. They make the decisions on pay based on the faulty data.

In fact, Derek, and that's not his real name, he's obviously using a fake name because he's worried about retaliation from Amazon, also said this. Every time I need to make a right-hand turn, it inevitably happens, meaning he gets cut off. A car cuts me off to move into my lane and the camera in this really dystopian, dark, robotic voice shouts at me. It's so disconcerting, it's upsetting, when I didn't do anything. And by the way, like the workers keep reaching out to Amazon. They reach out, they reach out to their employer, which oftentimes is a third party that's been contracted by Amazon to say, hey, I didn't do anything wrong. Like I, this is faulty, this is insane, like I got cut off.

And they get nothing more than crickets from Amazon. They still get their pay docked. In fact, the owners of the delivery companies that have been contracted out by have been complaining about this as well. Let's hear from one other worker, an Amazon delivery associate who says, when I get my score each week, I ask my company to tell me what I did wrong. My delivery company will email Amazon and CC me and say, hey, we have drivers who'd like to see the photos flagged as events, but they don't respond.

There's no room for discussion around the possibility that maybe the camera's data isn't clean. And another driver, this time a driver in Amazon, told Vice the following. The Netrodine cameras that Amazon installed in our vans have been nothing but a nightmare. They watch every move we make. I have been dinged for following too close when someone cuts me off. If I look into my mirrors to make sure I'm safe to change lanes, it dings me for distraction because my face is turned to look into my mirror. I personally did not feel any more safe with a camera watching my every move because the camera is not meant to keep you safe. It's meant to control the workers. It's meant to surveil the workers. It's meant to push unreasonable

expectations on workers for delivery drivers to meet unreasonable quotas while at the same time being perfect drivers. And in this case, even when the drivers aren't doing anything wrong, they get dinged for it and their pay suffers as a result. And I do want to give you one statement from a delivery service business owner that Amazon has decided to give a contract to. This person says Amazon uses these cameras allegedly to make sure they have a safer driving workforce, but they're actually using them not to pay delivery companies.

They just take our money and expect that to motivate us to figure it out. Listen, delivery drivers are reduced to urinating in plastic bottles in their cars because they want to meet the quota that Amazon has forced them to meet. So if Amazon genuinely cared about the safety and well-being of its workers, maybe create a situation in which they don't have to urinate in plastic. bottles in vehicles. Maybe look into that. Anytime Amazon claims it actually cares about the safety and the health and the well-being of its workers, just take a good hard look at how they treated workers in the beginning of the pandemic as they were demanding simple things like protective gear.

I mean, one of the workers who was organizing Amazon warehouse employees to make these demands got fired immediately, immediately. Amazon doesn't care about their health or their well-being. What Amazon cares about is extracting as much labor as cheaply as possible from these workers. That's it. And the reason why they're surveilling them is because, first of all, they're creeps, just like give people a little breathing room and a little freedom. But the surveillance is really about keeping tabs on them and ensuring that, you know,

there isn't any bad driving that could harm the company. I think they could care at all about how the workers are feeling or how they're being treated. They've been treating the workers poorly for a long time now. And it's not just Amazon. We're seeing employers all across the country use surveillance technology as more and more workers have to work from home. So if you're happy about the fact that you might be a remote worker now, Now, thanks to the pandemic, and you could be a remote worker permanently because things

are changing, don't worry, they'll find a way to surveil you. And many remote workers are already experiencing it. Has nothing at all to do with your well-being. It has everything to do with extracting as much labor from you as possible for the cheapest possible price. All right, we gotta go to break, but when we come back, Wazni Lombre will be joining me for hour two. We've got so many stories to get to, including Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, getting bullied by Tucker Carlson.

A lot of beta activity in Texas. We've got that and more when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple podcast at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.